budget. discusses therb budget and the administration's priorities and agenda for each agency. ♪ good morning. president obama sent congress a three point $9 trillion budget plan for 2015. blueprint loophole -- that would reduce the deficit with 3.4 trillion in new revenue. will be onell capitol hill defending the budget. as will chuck hagel and jack lew. will travel to new hampshire to rally support

for the budget. before that, we will focus on the proposal, getting your take and drilling down into your numbers. democrats, (202) 585-3880. republicans, (202) 585-3881. independents, (202) 585-3882. send us a tweet, @cspanwj. we can also read your comments on facebook.com/cspan and you can e-mail us at journal@c-span.org. here's what the president had to say about his budget. [video clip] we have to decide if we're are going to make smart investments. our deficits are falling at the fastest rate in 60 years. we have to decide if we're going to keep squeezing the middle class or reduce deficits

responsibly while taking steps strengthen the middle class. approach my budget offers. that is why i will fight for this year and in the years to come. talking about his $3.9 trillion budget. this is president obama's 2015 budget, it spends too much, borrows too much, and taxes too much. it reflects says america's priorities to create jobs, strengthen the middle class, and build an economy that creates opportunity for all. went to theell floor yesterday and talked about the president's budget proposal. he said it is not a serious document. [video clip]

>> it will probably never past the democratic led senate. in some sense, that is the point. rather than put together a constructive blueprint both parties could use to get the economy moving, the president is opting for the political stunt for a budget that is more about andng up the base in election-year. it would increase taxes by over $1 trillion in the worst economic slowdown anyone can remember. it would explode spending by $790 billion, forcing us to borrow more money. it would do almost nothing to threatsthe serious facing our children's futures

and does not come close to balancing this year. mitch mcconnell talking about the 2015 budget proposal. congress will take up budget proposals and will decide what gets spent. "the washington post" tweeted this -- it would spend more than $600 billion to boost economy. it would raise taxes by more than $1 trillion, mostly on the wealthy. it would ease debt problems for the next 10 years. in 2024ld be 69% of gdp versus 74.4% today. it would not reduce social security benefits. edward on twitter says this -- can't see gop agreeing on anything within potus budget. doug, what do you think? to -- the need

government about half of what it is right now and stop giving foreign aid to all of these other countries. we are going to give $8.9 billion to iran for relief when we have 1.5 million americans in that have ran out of employment compensation benefits. kind of government are we running? host: a look at where the money goes. billion for defense spending. that is what congress have control over's. nondefense, $563 billion. point $9nding is three trillion. 800 $96 billion for social

security. 526care eats up about billion dollars. medicaid, 330 6 billion dollars. other mandatory spending comes in at $691 billion. interest on the debt, $252 billion. where the money is race, taxes.ual income 237 billion. other taxes comes to $363 billion. proposal reduces the deficit $564 billion. gail, republican color. -- caller. caller: it is driving the country over the cliff. died over 60 years ago

and my mother taught me how to live within my means. this president does not know how to do that. you cannot spend what you do not have. he wants to give money to the -- gals and the you are looking to hurt anyone that does have a little bit. host: tax the rich. that is obama's main theme. where is the job creation atmosphere? budget.it is a good it is what we voted for by reelecting barack obama a second time. budget and it has

651 billion dollars in new revenue from the rich via changes to the tax code. financs $56 billion in cial. $56 billion to help states bolster preschool programs. income taxrned credit for americans without children and has $91 billion in mandatory and discretionary money for transportation infrastructure projects. five percent increase for the office of u.s. trade representative kirk in repeal of

one $4 billion of tax incentives for the oil, gas, and other fossil energy companies. full funding for the affordable care act and new funds for labs to work on cyber security and research centers. $276 billion raised through changes to international tax system. democraticorgia, caller, what do you make of the budget? he has good intentions. people have to understand that pass nothingnna while obama is in office. until these people stop putting down the division in america and thinking democratic and republican and start thinking people, look to the people that are talking. most of these people who are talking and fighting obama, they

are millionaires. beingon't care about republican or democrat. they care about their money. we need to understand this. we need to come together. we are hard-working people. we deserve everything we got. host: sam stein suites this out -- tweets this out -- the budget proposal is $100 million less than bush's 2002 level when adjusted for inflation. that caller was a veteran. military cuts could be rude array beginning -- rude awakening for veterans. puts thisgton post chart together. who gets more, who gets less in the budget? services, $73.7

billion. state and other international programs, $42.6 billion. urban, $32.6 billion. nasa get $17.5 billion. $22 billion for the agriculture department. $12 billion for labor and treasury. the corps of engineers gets about $4.5 billion. defense, the largest circle on the chart, $496 billion for defense spending. sam, elizabeth city, north carolina, democratic caller. caller: he is doing the best he can do to the circumstances. please don't cut me off. programs put jobs

[indiscernible] the day he was elected, they said their top dog was to make sure he was longtime president [indiscernible] host: this is rob portman's outt -- he tweeted president obama's budget shows he hasn't learned that we can't tax, spend, and borrow our way to prosperity. response to the president unveiling his budget. this article -- unlikely to become law as is. it will differentiate political parties and serve as fuel in the

congressional elections in 2014. billion above $55 limits set in the latest budget deal for defense, early childhood education, job-training, medical research. heard before -- raise tobacco universal pre-k education. that is the budget at a glance. 55 billion dollars in new spending. yesterday, his budget director was asked about this busting the budget cap by six -- $56 billion. put into placeal by paul ryan and patty murray. she was asked about it and here is her response. [video clip] an opportunity,

growth and security initiative that is fully paid for. the betweenevenly defense and nondefense. it presents additional investments in things like education, research, and manufacturing. building on the model initiative ishe fully paid for with a balanced package of spending cuts and tax reforms. it is deficit neutral. host: here is what paul ryan had to say. the president has just three years left in his administration and he seems determined to do nothing about our fiscal challenges. this budget isn't a serious document, it is a campaign brochure. you can tune in to watch sylvia burwell to talk about the

budget and the5 discretionary spending on p.m. eastern00 time. i am listening to what he has outlined and even though it is the congress and senate's job to put the bill for, i think he is making a good effort towards reining in a lot of spending that is being wasted. host: the president's budget does not include tackling entitlement reform, social security, medicare. been allowing the congress to make these cuts and they went so far to do that last one that went in before the food

stamp cut. dragging and bleeding and hoping to feed their families. troops are coming home. they will need jobs. these things are going to invest in our future. seen more war in our lifetime as three generations. it is time for america to find a new game. has maturede level in the world. iny can have their piece iraq. that is what it was about. them to travelow their path of life. host: we mentioned veterans and the soldiers coming home. proposed budget cuts could force roughly 90,000 servicemen and

women to seek civilian jobs. experts say they will have similar resumes and skill sets and a bad economy. the lack of meaningful opportunity will be a rude awakening for the veterans. when they leave the service and try to find a job in this economy right now. a $1.7 trillion tax hike and $8.3 trillion in new debt. find out more about the president's new budget is what he had to say. patty murray put out her statement as well. sylvia burwell will be before the senate budget committee testifying about the president's proposal. steve, oklahoma, republican caller.

we gave him a year or so to try to get the country started right. he put all of these eggs into the health care plan, they made us all mad. he is killing our country. it has turned our health care system upside down. now, everyone is changing doctors, losing doctors. there are constantly people in my office saying they lost a doctor and they needed new dr.. it is crazy. i live in a small town. they need to do something. they need to help the country out a lot better. -- wemarie tweets this don't need new taxes. workers are taxed enough in the u.s. good grief.

steve, texas, republican caller. steve, i will put you on hold and we will try to come back to you. we are talking about the budget blueprint unveiled on tuesday. congress is responding. go outside of washington to get your take on it. democrats, (202) 585-3880. republicans, (202) 585-3881. s, (202) 585-3882. also send us a tweet, @cspanwj and we will take your e-mails, journal@c-span.org. as his second term began to reduce social security cost of living increases.

woulded that gesture entice republicans to compromise on a grand bargain of long-term deficit reductions and federal investments. publicans refused -- republicans refused to consider raising tax revenues from the wealthy and some businesses. joining us on the phone is a senior economics writer. what do you make of the president's budget? guest: the republicans always attack it as a campaign document. they areryan said ok to run on the

stirring the midterm elections with this budget. he talked about that in the state of the union. this budget does that through its expanding the earned income tax credit. something hef proposed last year, which democrats did not like. chained cpi that would lower the cost of living increases for social security recipients. that is gone from this budget. he did not include that in this one. -- it is anet that election-year budget and it shapes up where democrats are

likely to -- what they will emphasize in their campaign. try to addresshe the income inequality when it comes to wealthier americans? guest: it includes many of the proposals that he is included in the past to increase taxes on the wealthy. is 1.1decade, there trillion dollars in tax -- thats of most of the falls on the wealthy. most of that limits the deductions -- the benefit that the wealthy can take from deductions, capping the amount. that is something he has proposed in every one of his budgets. congress has rejected it every time. he would raise taxes in that way on the wealthy. ist earned income tax credit

a significant expansion targeted whoorkers without children do not benefit as much from the tax credit. it would double their benefit from about 500 maximum to about a thousand. the white house estimates that would help about 13.5 million workers. is an expansion and a child tax credit which helps low-income families as well. host: what does it say about the deficit? it is on a downward track. deficit --cting a last year's deficit was $680 billion. that was the first time in four years it was under a trillion. this year's deficit he rejects

-- he projects it will be six or $49 billion and dropped to $564 billion. it does not deal with social security, medicare, medicaid programs that are growing me fastest. -- growing the fastest. the chained cpi reduction which year, on the table last something republicans have supported, he offered it only if republicans would agree to increase taxes on the wealthy. it is part of the grand bargain that washington has talked about

for years. republicans do not want to go there. from thatled back issue. -- chairmanans have ryan has gone farther in the entitlement area, but it is ,ifficult for the president with his democratic base so type ofto any entitlement reform, unless they see higher taxes on the wealthy. we are in a standoff. spending? about what does he want to spend money on to try to grow the economy? package -- hes a has called it the opportunity growth and security fund. it would hit $55 billion in that which $55 billion in that

would be above the spending limits that were agreed to and the ryan-murray budget agreement that was reached last december. go tof that would nondefense programs and have to seek a pointng to of compromise with republicans who are upset with defense being squeezed too much under this sequestration program and also help in the nondefense area with certain programs. there is a fund to also increase construction infrastructure, basically roadbuilding. he has new money in there to make it universal pre-k programs for age four kids.

that is in there. it is funded through an increase in -- taxes. he is constrained by the fact that the general outline of what he can spend was said by the budget agreement last december. host: what happens to the budget now? the line is always that it is dead on arrival. congress will work its will with it. that -- ryan has said is proceeding with a republican plan which his committee will vote out. the whole house will vote on it. very likely to be different from the proposal that the president has put forward. democrats, at the moment,

are not suggesting they are going to come forward with the budget. you have an outline of spending that was agreed to in the big compromise that was reached after they shut the government last october.ys you will continue to have tugging, but you will not see like youof calamity did. they have put it off for two years past the midterm elections . funding for the affordable care act in this budget? guest: it is there tank. -- it is there. it is included in there.

sure that is something the republicans will be targeting cents they want to -- since they want to change that law. it is in the president's budget. host: i have an e-mail here. military members should not be asked to pay more for health care. when it comes to military spending reduction, having the burden placed on service members reduces retention numbers and makes it different -- difficult for military recruiters to attract new people into the armed forces. guest: the core defense operations are at a level of $496 billion in this budget. republicans say that is a freeze. outlines of the budget agreement last december, but republicans do not like it.

they want more. the president is proposing to shrink the army from a 490,000 440,000 to to 450,000. meets a variety of ways to this slimmer defense budget. tot is going to be subject debate and congress. -- a lot of his savings that he is showing in this come from defense primarily. crutsinger, thank you for your time. let's go outside of washington, to all of you.

steve, texas, go ahead. caller: i am hurt by the fact that our country is so divided, politically, spiritually, and it seems as though our president is not a supporter of the constitution. i am an american indian, a .eteran my uncles fought in the war. we fought for the ability to be free and we adapted. we are of the cherokee tribe and we fought in war war two. my one uncle was a double bronze double bronzet -- star recipient. another uncle had to shoot his best friend for jumping ship. great sacrifice. we fought for freedom.

we are not free unless we think a certain way and believe a certain way or listen to a certain television station or the media. it seems to be so lopsided. i serve the living god that loves us all. i would serve again if i could. fight and reason to it is a fight to be free. -- the only freedom that we have is in christ jesus. host: what does this have to do with the budget? caller: i got off track. our budget, our economic situation is such that we have outsourced all of our jobs and we have all of these moronic jobs that do not help anything.

studies about hummingbirds -- we need people to go to work and put food on the table and feed their babies. host: the president says the way to do that is infrastructure spending. forroposes $600 billion infrastructure spending, transportation projects. is that a way to get the economy going? caller: we need roads. cities to build up our and we need to have american workers doing it. we don't need people from other countries coming in and taking our jobs. there is a bridge being built at was awarded to china and san francisco. have plenty of welders here. i teach welding. our greatest asset is a 15-year-old kid in high school taking welding it seems we have

forgotten all of our trade. we outsource everything. people from other countries come in and take our jobs to build our ships and airplanes, our roads and highways. host: let's hear from covington, georgia. from the wall street journal, what they call began take. the proposed funding for each department and billions. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. -- witho let you know the president's budget that obama worked on for 2015, that is what it is. a 2015 budget. ,ongress can look at the budget can bipartisan this and make any

changes that they wish, but changes theirntry state of mind where they stopped thetantly browbeating president for everything that he does. you can see he is under pressure of working with a team that does not see his point of view. you want to go forward and get good progress, people have to be willing, and when i say people, i am talking about congress on both sides of the aisle. you have to be willing to sit down, stop talking about it, and earnearned the income -- the income you want. you should be proud that you have a job in the congress. voters, are the people sitting out here waiting to see something.

i would like to see some brainstorming, people getting together, stop with all the think hisg and if you budget is still too high, don't be angry that it took too much from the military. explain team of experts why they had to cut back in various areas. he is relying on excellent people inst like congress are excellent. why don't we get together, put on our positive hats and get this country going. as far as anything else, i don't like that the unemployment long-term extensions hasn't been extended, but i am not stopping fighting. i am going to my family, making the cuts that i need. friends,to my relatives, asking for suggestions. i never stop looking for a job. thank you for listening. host: you are unemployed?

caller: yes ma'am. this is the first time in my life i have ever taken unemployment. in a greatr 30 years corporate job and after, when i retired, i had to start taking up smaller jobs. i saw the way this country was heading. budget.w, i am doing my .t is cut so far down the road stories i hear about how people are suffering, that is a terrible thing. i hope for the best for them. to best thing i can tell you do is sit at the family table and cut back wherever you can. you don't get angry at the people that are in charge. this is my personal vendetta that i have to do with the choices i have made from my life. i feel on positive note that

tomorrow will always be better. i respect what is going on in congress. we need to stop the finger-pointing. he has two more years in office. that's get something done and let's run this country the way it needs to be so that we can continue to be proud of america the way we were when our forefathers did it. they did not even have all the insights and technology and things that we have today. host: we will leave it there. we are getting your thoughts on the president's budget blueprint that he sent to congress yesterday. democrats, (202) 585-3880. republicans, (202) 585-3881. independents, (202) 585-3882. can read your e-mails if you want to e-mail us, journal@c-span.org or send us a and you can go to facebook.com/cspan and put

your thoughts on that website. the caller mentioned unemployment benefits. harry reid sent out this tweet. tonight i filed a bill to renew unemployment benefits for the long-term uninsured -- unemployed for six months. we will vote on it in the next few days. make your voice heard. the majority leader has been coming to the floor quite a bit lately and talking about the ch brothers and their influence on the campaign. he has sent out numerous tweets on the issue as well. if you go to his twitter page, he has put out several tweets on h brothers and the role they play on the campaign. if you go to our website, we are showing you that beauty -- that video of him talking about the

koch brothers. if you're interested in that, go to c-span.org. the washington times puts the story about the majority leader talking about the koch brothers on its front page. remarks stoke a feud. that is what "the washington times" says in their headline. another column -- or read has his motives for going after the koch brothers. he knows that bashing them is good for business. democrats are working hard to raise the profile of the koch brothers in advance of the midterms in hopes of using the specter of the big spending billionaires to excite not only the party's activist base, but

as importantly, its major donors. ch attacking the ko brothers, reid is making sure the liberal donors know that the fight for the senate isn't a fair one at the moment and that if they want to hold the chamber, they need to step it up. we are getting your thoughts on the president's budget proposal. free $.9 trillion bill. will be testifying on capitol hill before the senate finance committee. we will have coverage of that on c-span3 at 10:30 a.m. eastern time. before the senate finance committee. republican color, high, and. caller, hi ed. caller: i'm calling about the budget. i had to turn the tv off.

anyway. this budget -- i am a .onservative this is a mess. i spent 20 years in the service. i listen to your callers. it's a mess. cuts.are no you have a cut in the military. that is it. we will be over 20 something trillion in the end of a year or two. it has quadrupled in the last five years. why listen to the democrats, i am sorry. look at every state in this country run by conservatives , they have an surplus instead of being bankrupt. runaway democrats like detroit and california. muchlicans -- they are in

better shape in this country. they are destroying this country. they don't want to give up nothing. they keep crying about unemployment. i know tons of people collecting . they come to me. i am a contractor. they haven't looked for the last year. headstart is nothing but a babysitting. make proving it doesn't improvements. there are so many cuts they can do. i am 54. this is ridiculous. people are taking and taking in this country. host: what do you do? you are a contractor? caller: i am a contractor.

folks are 80 and 83. we will move on to john, whitman, massachusetts. they are going to start bickering about the social security and cpi. how many people realize that ious sitting in the bottom of a filing cabinet? i think they should pay up the $2.7 trillion before they start bickering about the cpi and leave well enough for loan. is this a budget or a wish list? this is from darrell -- this budget is reasonable.

let's see if our friends on the other side were to pass it. we're going to continue talking about the budget proposal on "washington journal." we will dig into the numbers with reporters from washington who cover the different agencies. first, the judging is complete. this year's 2014 student cam winners know who they are. the grand prize entry came from a team of high school students from long beach, california. here is more on them. the other winners in our annual contest. >> this is one of our favorite time of the year at c-span. we get to introduce the winners of student cam. what is the most important issue that congress should consider in 2014? we received a record number of 2003 hundred 55

entries. a came from 46 states. students all around the country and some internationally. studentsr, 4316 participated. one of the things that was special about this year's contest is that we doubled the number of prizes and of the amount of prize money. $50,000 prize contest to us giving away $100,000 in prizes. 97 students will receive honorable mention. the grand prize this year, $5,000 to the rating -- to the winning entry. there is 1 first place at the middle school level. one of the reasons we do this is to hear what is on the minds of

young people. the topics that students choose are a good way to measure what they're are thinking about. here's the list of the top categories -- top issues we received from students. number one, the economy. second was gun legislation. third on the minds of students this year by the numbers of entries we received was education and education issues. the next in line was documentaries about the environment and after that, immigration. we are going to tell you about the grand prize winners this year. it was a team. their topic was called earth first, fracking second. it was a three person team from long beach polytechnic high school. they are served by charter communications. as a three team member in that .roup, >>, michaela, and sarah we are going to be talking with

emma right now. you was your reaction when heard you one grand prize? >> we were shocked. we looked across at one another and could not believe it. >> when you finished the documentary, did you have a sense of how good it was? >> we did not. >> how did you get interested in the contest? >> our ninth grade government teacher. how did your team come together? were you able to pick your teams or did the teacher assign them? >> we could pick our team members. we chose other people we have known for a few years. we knew we worked well together. >> when you joined forces with any ofa and sarah, had you done documentaries before? >> no. we watched a lot of videos about

how to make the documentaries and tips about editing and things like that. >> how did you choose the topic? our government class, we have to complete current events. i read an article on the new york times about fracking and was interested. a couple of weeks later, we saw in our local newspaper another article about fracking. once you start researching about it, it becomes a fascinating topic. >> long beach has had an oil industry. there's a lot of oil drilling. you were surprised to find out .racking >> it is unregulated. there is no technique, no water testing. >> is that the primary thing that you learn when you researched fracking? >> what is the message that you

would like to have congress hear from the three of you as young people about fracking? problem andry has a that problem is the regulation of hydraulic fracking. we want them to keep in mind that it is crate for our country, but it has to be regulated and it has to be safe. both is important to show sides of the issue and you reference the fact that there is great economic benefit. give the people listening today a sense of why the economic aspect of this are important. to a research published, there is free .5 million jobs created by 2020. that is a huge number. -- 3.5 million jobs created by 2020. most interesting

person that you interviewed for the project? >> terry greenwood. he is a farmer and his story about how fracking affected his life. >> how did you find a farmer in pennsylvania when you live in california? that researched people have been affected by fracking. what you plan to do next with what you have learned? talk to the we can local city officials in our city and have them regulate the fracking that is happening about two miles away from our house. >> what are you planning to do with the $5,000 and how did your school mark your wind? >> we are putting that to a trick that -- trip that the three of us will go on after high school.

us --hool is recognizing they spend the money on video cameras for next year. people are very proud of us. congratulations to you, michaela, and sarah. we are proud of you. we are proud of all of the students that entered. we got great entries this year. it was terrific that your team was chosen as number one. congratulations. >> let's tell you a little bit more about the other winners that were chosen. before we do that, to give you a sense of what the grand prize was like in comparison, let's watch a clip.\ hydraulicngress, fracking can be important for the growth of our economy. if you want the support of the american people, some things need to change. you need to investigate the seismicf fracking on

activity in the use of recycled water and soda freshwater. you need to mandate the testing of water near fracking sites. importantly, the loophole needs to be closed. you need to require public disclosure of hydraulic fracking. they have their gas. if they still are, they say it is not our problem. they should take the exemptions off the table. >> a short glimpse of the winning documentary this year. earth first, fracking second. a team of ninth graders from

long beach, california. there are many winners across the united states. this year, we did three regional winners at the high school level. we will tell you more about who won the top prizes for high school. the top prize in high school problem.iagnosing the the winners are shelley ortiz, hannah hood and nina nandin. topic on mental health diagnosis and treatment as their message to congress. first prize winner of central. we the people, genetically modified. demeter is the winner there. is first prize on high school east, murky future. that is a team of 10th graders from montgomery blair high school in the washington, d c area.

they are served by comcast. their topic was water pollution. the first prize, and there is only one of these at the middle nsa.l level, is on the it was done by a team of eighth-graders from eastern middle school in silver spring, maryland. they are customers of comcast cable. theirs was on the big debate of government surveillance. those who actually claim prizes are all available for you to see on our studentcam website. studentcam.org. continueare back to the discussion on washington journal this morning. joining us on the phone is jeremy herb. let's talk about the overall number for the pentagon. what is it at how is the money

going to be divvied up? is 490 $6 budget billion. that is the same amount that it has for 2014. than whatr is less the pentagon plan to have this year. what they had to do was make some -- to get under the spending cap. the budget proposes cutting the size of the army to the lowest point since before world war ii in 1940. it proposes benefit cuts for troops and weapons cancellations. there is a lot of issue in here that we will see some push from congress on. host: where will congress pushed back? guest: everything i just laid out. we have heard criticism after the secretary laid out this plan last week. happy that the

president wants to roll back the size of the army to about 450,000 troops. see it playant to out with a dash. -- with a >we saw the fight over the cola cuts. are trying to stop the new cuts that the -- that are being proposed. pentagon else is the planning to spend the money differently and 2015 that has in the past? the way secretary hagel framed this budget was that it is the first budget where troops

are going to be moved away from a war footing. be ending the war in afghanistan in 2014. we do not have the full budget yet because there is a placeholder for overseas contingency operations. troopsot know how many we will have their in 2015. the pentagon has put a placeholder there. is an empty number and they will not fill it out until they are sure of what they have. host: what about cyber security and technology? host: that is a big focus. in addition to the budget, the pentagon put out something called the defense review. that is a four-year program that they do. one of the things they want to focus on is a move to look at cyber and special operations and

.ind ways to innovate the secretary has said the military has to shrink and we have to become a more modern and capable military as the budget dollars shrank. they try to reduce forces, what does the pentagon plan to do with its military benefits? guest: does take a hit in this year's budget. they have proposed capping the pay raise at 1% this year. increases andosed housing subsidy cuts for service members. a lot of these cuts have faced resistance and congress. in the last few years, they have rejected the cuts to health. they also want to close bases.

they are proposing a new round of base closures. as we know, anyone in congress who can see the base in congress whose is a base potentially bankrupt in their district is not happy. it will be very difficult for them to get a lot of these actually enacted into law. host: all right, jeremy herb, defense reporter with "the hill ," thank you. we are continuing our discussion here this morning about the president's 2015 budget proposal. he unveiled it yesterday, sent it to capitol hill, and congress is reacting. we want to get your thoughts on it. ,emocrats --(202) 585-3880 republicans (202) 585-3881, independents and all others, (202) 585-3882. joining me on, zachary goldfarb, the white house & economics reporter for the "washington post."

the overall number, what is it, and what do you make of it? a 3.9 the president since trillion dollar budget to congress yesterday and it is basically two different things. one, it is apolitical -- it is a political document. it is not involve any big compromises. he rallies the base. it expands college access, kids,tion for young, poor expanding tax credits for those in poverty in some role -- and similar measures. more than that, it is a policy document not best viewed as a tool for this year but as a tool for 2015 and 2016, the final years of the obama presidency. he wants to get something done before leaving. that 2017 date it's because -- is coming sooner than anyone wants or anyone expects. he is figuring out a policy plan for the final two years. host: is a realistic, though, that this policy plan can get

through congress that he is laying out in this budget? guest: no. i do not think anyone expects the entire budget will pass congress. i do not think that has ever happened and no one expects that, but there are things in there that might have some opportunity for bipartisan compromise, depending on what happens this november. for example, the president proposed a reform of the business tax code that would generate some one-time revenue that could be used to build and generateoads some jobs. that is similar to a proposal in many ways that the chairman of the house and ways committee released last week. so there are definitely some ideas in the budget that could be grounds for compromise in the final two years of his presidency. host: in this budget, does he indicate where he may act alone? guest: there is not so much of that. the budget is a document that specifies what he wants out of congress, what he wants congress to appropriate. executiveent has an

action plan that he is implementing now. he is already taking some action. he has many more this year. the budgets almost never get through. this budget is not so much focus on the executive actions -- it is focused more on what he would like congress to do. host: what has been the reaction so far from congress? guest: protectable. republicans have slanted and democrats have praised it. is arats even admit it roadmap for those midterm elections and that is largely a messaging argument. -- a messaging document. that paul ryanet will release, there is room for contra mice. i mentioned the business tax reform. one of the big -- compromise. i mentioned the income -- business tax reform. the president proposes expanding a tax credit so it is more generous to childless workers. isht now, the eitc

better for those with families. he is expanding a, and republicans like the eitc. alsoand rubio have reported expansion. host: how do these areas of copper might get folded into legislation and what if the vehicle to get it done? guest: i don't think anyone will say anything can get done this year on legislation. last december, representative ryan and senator patty murray, the chairman of the senate budget committee, agreed to basically -- spending limits, spending caps for 2014, and those are pretty much in law now. very their election is that official to the president. -- is very beneficial to the present. there is potential of replacing some of the spending cuts to take effect next year or replacing some of the current, limited spending caps with more

generous spending caps by either eliminating some very specific tax loopholes that republicans also do not like, like interest on hedge funds and private equity firms, or perhaps finding alternative spending cuts in medicare or other programs that republicans might support. host: what does the president's budget say about the two-year budget deal that patty murray and paul ryan were able to strike for 2014 and 2015? what has been the response from congress to what the president lays out in the budget? guest: the white house is a slightly confusing perspective on the spending limits that were presented of ryan and -- that representative ryan and murray had. by paying for any increase by closing tax loopholes and finding other spending cuts, alternative and better cuts to make. they propose what they call an opportunity, economic, and security path initiative which is worth it to $6 billion for

, and5, and -- for 2015 $28 billion additional for education, $28 billion for defense. manufacturing, energy, efficiencies, also have bread- and-butter issues. going really thinks it is to happen before the elections. it is possible that there could be some compromise after the election because ryan and murray did find a compromise before last december when no one really expected they would. so it is not guaranteed not to happen. so this sort of provides a roadmap for what might happen. host: the president's budget is one thing. isty murray and paul ryan's another, but then you have the role of the appropriators and all of this. guest: right. the appropriators figure out the budget for this year, it in it happens behind the scenes.

the omnibus bill, a lot of appropriations for this year at the top level police and many individual as well. that work is going to continue. the president and the white house will start to affect that balance because congress -- there's still an ability to shift or shape what some of the lower level accounts look like. really this is a battle about what happens after this year. host: and then what? thet: if republicans win senate committee and large their majority in the house, is very hard to see obama achieving much in the final two years of his presidency. maybe republicans will want to do a deal on corporate taxes or eitc, but it is hard to imagine. if you expect democrats to win the house. republicansld see looking at a jobs initiative, and infrastructure initiative, closing some tax loopholes. they really depend somewhat on the resolution of the house, of senate elections because the

likelihood as we will stay with what we have. host: joe tweeps in about congress' role -- the president's budget is a proposal based on his vision for the country. congress' job is to balance outlays and revenue. guest: that is technically true but the president provides leadership. the republican budget will be pastore introduced in a few weeks. republicans controlled the house, that is being drafted by representative paul ryan. visions are almost diametrically opposed. obama wants to expand those programs. these visions are not reconcilable right now. the democrats do not even plan to put out a budget but there is no official budget making congress this year. this is more a political document that will frame two different visions. host: on poor americans and is

so, income inequality gap, you mentioned paul ryan wants to address that. what do the republicans want to do? what has changed recently is revoke and have started to focus on the fact that poverty, inequality -- they prefer to inequalityon income and more an economic opportunity. for several years, republicans have been focused on the deficit, cutting spending and taxes, and now there is a shift to focus more on issues like security, poverty, etc. , that they address that is a big, big debate in the republican party. democrats are kind of result on what they want to do. republicans are still searching for ways. in general, republicans like ideas like the eitc, measures that encourage people to work harder or longer hours in exchange for government help, but they are still not really a consensus on how republicans who try to address these issues.

it is more a consensus that we should focus on these issues. host: we are talking about the president's 2013 budget blueprint that he unveiled yesterday with zachary goldfarb of the "washington post." on capitol hill today, the president's cabinet members will be defending that proposal. the omb director, silvio laurel insilvio barwell, will be front of the house. we will have coverage of the committee on c-span3, and also treasury secretary jack lew will be on capitol hill this morning before the senate finance committee. talking about the president's 2015 budget proposal as well. that is 10:30 this morning a.m. eastern time, c-span3. steve, you are up first for zachary goldfarb. taking myank you for call. i am a retired army, i see the calling back our

foreign policy, but i'm not here to talk about horses and bayonets. i think this is the segue into raising federalism. i did hear you say that we are spending $600 billion for infrastructure in of the report $7 trillion budget deal. the $3.7 trillion budget deal. i understand paul krugman says we are not spending enough. not the issueit's when programs are managed properly. 95 anddrive down route hit the six nash and her section of 198 and 95, they have had jersey walls up there for five years, and this is all part of the stimulus, the recovery and reinvestment act of 2009. so i do not know what the excuse is. this gives infrastructure spending a bad name when funds like this are poorly managed, when there is no movement on a project.

i think that this says that for itself. and i don't want to hear anybody saying republicans are against infrastructure spending. it is the mismanagement of the funds that bothers people. the privateng -- in sector, you do not mismanage funds. you do not have unlimited funds and unlimited tax dollars. that is what the government seems to give -- we can just tax infinite him and then the money is wasted. host: overall, you agree with the idea from the president that if you put money into infrastructure, that you will grow the economy. caller: undoubtedly. spending -- he goes out to the economy, that is common sense. the problem is management. that is where reagan federalism comes in. if you give the money to the states and let the minutes on a local level, i think that is a better way to go. these people are the experts. i am just the old army guy. host: you were in the army for how long? caller: 20 years active-duty

duty, 1.5 years active reserves. host: and you are out now, second job? caller: yes. guest: i think the caller reaches an interesting question and it is true that many projects or some projects are mismanaged. exactly how many it's hard to say. it is a very big federal government. it is a lot of money. you are going to see some infrastructure projects bogged down in delays. however, i do not think many people would disagree with the fact that the united states has a profound infrastructure deficit, and you visit top airports, you visit top places of transportation, roads and bridges across the country, they are fallen down, they are broken. many economists think it is a no-brainer right now for the federal government to spend more on infrastructure because basically foreign countries are willing to lend us money at very low interest rates will stop interestastructural --

rates. that will boost. host: is this the president one proposal on job creation? guest: no, there are other proposals, too, but this is the big proposal. you want to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on infrastructure over the coming years. that is substantial. that is the most direct idea and that is rigged for unemployed populations because it is easy to get reattached to the labor force, to get back to work by doing construction work. aost: we will go to lind next. caller: hi. i take care of my mother, who is on social security. the medicare cuts -- i am a baby boomer. we are supposed to take care of our families. what happens to taking care of our families? host: what cuts are you talking

about, linda? caller: they say the economy is getting better. keep us in the usa instead of spending and overseas. host: ok, so foreign aid. guest: many families feel hurt that the government has not supported the more in terms of ui benefitswe saw retiree suddenly. that left many people without any money. that is a big problem. medicare, social security to some degree in the budget negotiations that happened periodically on capitol hill. foreign aid is a very small part of the budget. 2% or less. i don't think that is a major focus of where budget talks are going. host: that's go to manchester, washington, democratic caller. changedi comments have since i have been listening to the conversation.

first, i want to say that the province sector does fail. and reagan brought us one of the biggest debtor nations -- i am sorry -- reagan brought a lot of debt to this nation. havingas the republican no plan on poverty, that isbecause they never really cared about poverty. from what i have seen. as far as yours first speaker you had on talking about the military budget line item stating the same with no increase, republicans should jump all over that or conservatives. we are not increasing it. we can't, they, we cannot address the poor, yes, we are still a struggling nation. you can tell that i am a democrat. i am not just a democrat. i have been independent for years. i have never voted a straight partyline ticket ever. i told my stuff i would never do it. but this last election, i said

you know why, i cannot tell my seven my conscience i am an independent for voting for people that i just cannot support. i do want to raise one more veryent -- i'm frustrated about the fact of where would this country be if the republicans actually wanted to help our president and help this country? divorced parents with the hatred of the parent before the love of the child. the nancy pelosi was speaker, she put forth legislation that she knew could get by. they were still democrats. they were a successful congress. host: ok, we got your point. zachary goldfarb. guest: i think the caller reflects a lot of frustration especially among democrats that republicans have worked many points to get a new way of the president's agenda and many believe that if republican that been more compromising the economy would be better off. people in the white house believe that too.

but a divided government is part of this country's culture in history and should be expected. you have seen republicans -- democrats get in the way republican residents and so it is not so surprising in that sense. host: we have a lot of roads repaved with the president's billions in 2010, so our roads are not crumbling. sorry about yours. and obama budget results in a byional debt of $25 trillion 2024. what does that say about the deficit? guest: it is true that the president's budget does put the debt around $25 trillion by 2024. that is kind of a relevant number in some ways really because the economy will grow significant way between now and then. the axle actual -- the actual level of the debt is irrelevant. with a much larger debt in some countries than you would compare -- you would not compare our debt now to 100 years ago before years of inflation in years of

economic growth when the population was much smaller. what is really relevant is the debt relative to the size of the overall economy because that gives you an objective sense of how much we are really indebted as a country compared to our economic activity. the president's budget projects the debt held by the public, which is debt owed to people outside the government. it would be about 69% of the economy in 2024. that is actually a decline from 74% today. that is good news and bad news. the good news is that we are actually having smaller deficits and our economy is growing faster sword that is going down. the bad news is that it is so bad by historical standards when over the past 40, 50 years, debt to gdp has averaged around 40%. so it is not good in historical terms, but it is good in recent history. the big problem is over the following decades when people are retiree, that that is going it isl back to -- that not going to fall back to the

store will norms, it is going to rise again because social security and medicare. so the problem is not over as the person on twitter points out. but the problem for the next 10 years is considerable. host: that is the debt. what is the deficit number and this budget proposal? define the two. debt: people talk about and deficit in one sentence and it is confusing. deficits are basically how much the government spent in a year less how much they raise in revenue. so if they spent more than a raise in -- than they raise in revenue, they have a deficit. right now the deficit is in the high 3% to around 4%. next year it will fall into the 2%'s. that is a really big decline from where it was in 2010, only 10% of gdp because the recession had pushed spending so high.

so that is progress, and as long as the economy is growing faster than 2%, if the deficit is 2%, the debt is a jerk line -- the debt is in decline because that is an accumulation of annual deficit. every year you spend a little more than you have and then you borrow money to make up the difference and that adds to the national debt. so deficits according to the president's budget will also come down quite significantly over the next 10 years if all of his policies were put into place , 1.6% of gdp, which is easily sustainable over a long period of time. he president achieve this by raising taxes by more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years, mainly on wealthy people, but on middle-class people to buy raising tobacco taxes, for example. it is a huge controversy because of the significant increase in taxes. host: john in washington, independent caller. caller: thank you for taking my call. independent because most

of us americans have caught onto the big blame game. , andeach blame each other basically they are on the same team. they have different ways to go about it. my main problem is the epa. we are giving him close to $8 million, and it'll do nothing for us. they let the fracking industry go unregulated, they let solar management go unregulated. they are spraying our skies, trying to dim the sun to fight global warming. nobody knows about it. 02 global sky watch and you can find out all about it. i want to know where is the epa taking us from this -- his name is david keith from nasa, and he wants to spray and he has been spraying our son might to dim it. zachary goldfarb, i know you do not ever the epa so severely, but what is part of

the agenda this year? hist: the president -- and budget, he proposes billions of dollars for climate research and related endeavor to. -- related endeavors. it is to continue current operations and the epa is pursuing some major controversial regulations, for example, the regulation of coal fire power plants, both new and old. they are trying to put coal- fired power plants, stop the creation of new power plants that are very bad for the environment. it is very controversial. many republicans and businessmen and businesswomen hate that idea, but it is the main executive action the president can take to try to combat i'm a change. host: -- combat climate change. host: margie is next. caller: i think you need to have some different callers. when you have the reporters on the long and the morning, all of them so far have complained about the wealthy getting screwed by the little people

and if you look up strategy mismanagement, we are the ones being killed by the psycho maniacs in washington, and they are getting billions of dollars for killing us. look up strategy, defense, management, people wil. people at c-span know it. they know what is going on. that is why they are giving away $5,000 to the school. host: c-span knows what? thatr: surely you all know they get paid every time they have to pay a tax or regulation or compliance. they get a billion dollars for that. don't tell me you don't know that. host: members of congress? they all do., insider trading -- as long as it is in the public, it is not insider trading so what they are doing is getting it all out so that wall street knows about it.

host: margie, i am not sure if to the making reference student can contest that we just showed you, the 2014 winners have been announced, they know who they are. we just showed a little bit of the top winners and more about the contest. if you want to learn more about student can, go to our website, c-span.org. you can go to studentcam.org as well, and you can see all of the details there about the awards that we give out to the students for doing these -- participating in his annual documentary. zachary goldfarb. guest: i think the caller probably reflects a lot of frustration among americans with the pace and shape of the economic recovery over the past five years. it is hard to believe, but is almost five years since the recession ended, which happened in june, 2009. since then, the economy has recovered a lot, the

unemployment rate has come down. but very uneven. people to some degree blame washington for not trying to figure out a way to make the recovery and 50 population in a broader way. few years ago a looked at the wealth of people in congress, and congress 30 years ago had a lot more people who were just middle-class and came to congress. now, there are a lot more millionaires in congress and people in congress are part of is 1%, so i think the caller frustrated incher's frustration with a lot of americans about whether congress is looking out for the average person in the way they should be. host: on twitter -- do you think someone who makes $1 million a year and someone who makes $1 billion a year should have the same top tax rate? guest: i don't know if i have a strong opinion on that. i can tell you right now that essentially they do have the same top tax rate technically, but the big tax often -- much of the income of people who make a lot of money, and the millions

or billions, there are not that many people who make in the billions, make their money in income and dividends and so forth and sometimes those are taxed at different rates. and so that can cause a lot of controversy. another big thing is the state taxes. people can pass on many millions to their heirs without paying taxes, and that causes a situation where you have questions about economic opportunity and whether everyone is getting a fair tax. host: what does the president's budget say about wealthier americans and how much a should pay?- they should guest: the president's budget would raise taxes by a little over $1 trillion over the next 10 years, and it would primarily do so -- the lion's share would come from new taxes on wealthy people. a few examples -- the president all-digitalto 28%

actions in the tax code. that would make the deductions like the home mortgage interest reduction, local property tax reduction much less prosperous for will wealthy people to use. to carriedo a limit interest, which i mentioned earlier, which is a loophole that hedge fund and private equity managers can use to avoid paying high income tax rates. a variety of other taxable souls -- other tax loopholes that benefit wealthy people also. host: dan, you are next in tulsa, oklahoma, republican caller. good morning, go ahead. caller: ok. i was is listening earlier to a caller talking about the epa in talking about the world companies getting all these breaks. well, based on what i have read they pay $60net, million a day in leases and taxes.

that ifyou going to pay you shut down the oil company and the guy that is supplying the energy for the united states? host: dan, where did you read how much they pay for leasing of the land and taxes? caller: well, that is just on the internet. goldfarb, theary oil companies do pay taxes and they do have to pay the federal government to lease these lands. guest: that is right. the reason the government thinks that if there is it is multi fold. first, the government believes that these are public lands in many cases and so some of the benefits of that oil and gas should spread to people in those communities and around the country and not just into the pockets of the company. secondly, there is enforcement, environmental regulation in terms of government oversight when you are doing natural resources drilling index wishon in the u.s. to protect the

environment, natural habitats and so forth. that needs to be paid for as well. i think the licensing fees go to that support. host: freelancer on twitter -- how much debt did bush leave? trillion dollars spent in eight years and now gop act like they had nothing to do with that. i cannot recall how much that was there when president obama came into the white house, but there is no question that under president george w. bush, the deficit and debt grew significantly, primarily because of the wars in iraq and afghanistan, which were not paid for -- the expansion of the medicare part d entitlement, which was not paid for. and the significant bush tax cuts that also of course when not paid for. and so all those combined dramatically widened the debts over president bush's eight years. and the recession assertive in in last year this presidency 2007 put the nail in the coffin and wiped out government

finances to a large degree. so there is no question that george w. bush's presidency was not good for federal finances overall. host: we are talking here this morning on the "washington journal" about the president's 2015 budget blueprint with zachary goldfarb of the "washington post." going outside of washington to get your take on what the president is proposing to congress. dan in tulsa, oklahoma, republican caller. go ahead, dan. workr: i have a relatively seven days a week. he makes a lot of money, but when i was working in the oil, in the refineries and stuff in the unions, a lot of guys get paid double time on holidays and weekends and overtime, you know, like time and a half, and then they would not show up monday and tuesday. 40%.uld be, like, 30%, to you can tax the rich if you want

to, but if you look at a history lesson, the only thing that brought down the roman empire was taxing the rich. think about that. host: all right, dan. sue in illinois. democratic caller. caller: well, the roman empire was a long, long time ago and things have changed substantially since the roman empire. we do not live in rome, we live in the united states. we want the people taxed at that are rich. they are not hurting. the wall street's as they're not hurting. says they arereet not hurting. they have up to their money tenfold. get rid of the lunatics that are in washington. i notice you have a lot of republican callers. if your cousin works seven days a week, i am sure he is reaping his benefits. a do not take it out of the tax $14,000 me, who made last year, and you want to tax offiftysomething dollars out

$200 a week when the rich keep getting richer and richer. america, wake up! host: all right, stu, the "wall street journal" wave and fading back to pelosi budget, and they say host: zachary goldfarb, what is the impact of that on the

economy? put upsince the caller the roman empire, i am going to continue with that for a second. i recently did a story for the "post" website based on some research, and he compared the wealth of top people in ancient rome to america today and found out that if you do an analysis, people today are still much, much richer, and the richer -- than the richest people were in roman history. you can buy much more labor for similar amounts. what that amounts to is our country has enormous inequality, enormous wealth. the questions raised by the raised byhe questions the editorial is how should you divvy up that wealth? should you divvy it up at all to ensure quality share prosperity? it is a philosophical question in some ways. if you do not believe that people should be forced to give up part of your wealth, that is

your answer. other people believe people should give up some of their wealth in order to provide others services or benefits and give others a chance, then you're not talking about the principle, you are talking about how to divvy it up, and that is a question of a map of judgment -- people like to say 90%, the debt is $25 billion, no one knows what these numbers actually mean. they are just numbers we use. really it is a question of how much do you believe we should divvy up the nation's bounty and how much do we help each other or try to help each other? host: that has less to do with economics and more to do with morality and political philosophy? guest: i think so because one to decide, you first have to decide what you want your principles to be, and in the economics help you figure out how to do the numbers, how to do a program. economics is a science. you first have to decide whether you want to identify something as a disease before you figure out a cure. the cure is a

legitimate disagreement within economics. the just spewing out numbers about wealth or the tax revenue -- the numbers are irrelevant unless you decide you want to make a value judgment about them. host: the "new york times" editorial that the president's budget. they say the what might have been budget. plan shows how many goals could have been won by cutting high end tax breaks. every dollar of which will be resisted by republicans. that is because they have failed the test that mr. obama laid out on tuesday. as a country, we have to decide if we're going to protect tax breaks for the wealthy americans or if we're going to make smart investments necessary to create jobs and expand opportunity for every american. john, democratic caller. caller: good morning. i hope you can answer this question. what is going on with this emergency unemployment? is a dead? are they going to bring it back

up or what? i don't know who to ask, that is why i am giving you a call. host: all right, john. guest: thank you for the question. it is a very difficult situation and many leaders of the "washington post," many callers on c-span have been asking about this question. democrats in congress are still searching for some sort of loop to extend the emergency insurance, but they do not have one. the president wants to find that, but his budget is not going anywhere in the near term, so it is very hard, unfortunately, for many long- term unemployed americans, to see a path or this legislation getting through congress. getting is possible through the election season, and more here through constituents that they have been unemployed of time.g period but for now, it is not clear what path there might be for

legislation like this. host: senate majority leader harry reid tweeting out that he filed a bill to renew benefits for the long-term unemployed. -- we willhis tweet vote on it in the next few days. make your voice heard!" the numbers he put -- americans who have lost their unemployment benefits -- 2 million and counting. we go to marry next and en -- we go to mary next in new york. independent caller. constitution calls for the first thing for the country to do is to defend it. and every time you turn around, they keep taking away from the military. some of the military people were on food stamp, for god's sake. and i don't think that is right. what i take away from this one and give to everybody, give to overseas, give it everywhere, and the military is always

getting the short end of the deal, yet they do the most and they don't have no overtime, believe me. host: mary, what is the solution? caller: the solution is if you're going to cut everywhere, you don't cut the military! you depend on them to keep this country free. host: where should they cut? caller: oh, there is places everywhere. they talk about waste and fraud. i don't think they should cut the military. those people don't get no overtime. -- hewasn't for bush would have them on food stamps, god'sten's -- foor sake. the administration another proposal proposed a whole range of cuts to the military. it is a very tough choice. it seemed like a no-brainer that you would want to cut spending until recently that focus on any

kind of cold war mentality programs. that is a challenge. definitely the most difficult part of the military cuts come in the area of benefits and retirement and medical programs for veterans and for active-duty servicemen and women. decided to, they change the cost of living adjustment for some military benefits. that caused a huge stir and congress swiftly rolled it back. whether and how you should adjust spending for military retirees and beneficiaries is very hard to know. but there is a lot of argument from people on either side of the military, former military, that the system is totally broken right now. and you do have as the caller pointed out some people in the military on food stamps. and you have others receiving lavish benefits. i'm not a defense spending, but it is definitely an issue that involves many difficult questions about how we want to treat people who serve us in

harms way. host: we are talking about the president's budget and zachary goldfarb mentioned the ukraine. there is money that the united states has set aside now for ukraine, for aid to the country. here is the "new york times" -- offer of aid to ukraine and pushes back at russian claims. host: the united states will also send technical experts to the ukraine's national bank and finance ministry to help establish the legitimacy of the ukraine's coming elections. -- economics stations sanctions to punish russia in

crimea are likely within days according to the senior state department official traveling with secretary kerry who was in the ukraine yesterday and who is meeting in paris with his russian counterpart as other other -- as well as other foreign members. that is infected to take place this morning east coast time in paris to discuss what is the to deal with ukraine and russia's role in it. ernest, gocaller, ahead. caller: i am wondering why we just don't go to a flat tax? manye called the show times before, and it is always gone over, but everybody realizes we need to go to a flat tax. i do not understand why the government is not to say ok, let's do a flat tax across the board. we will have more money coming in then we will ever use. it is my question. thank you. guest: i understand why the caller and many other people find the flat tax as a nice notion. it certainly seems pretty simple. you just have a simple amount

and you send a check and it is over. but that it is a bit more complicated than that. first of all, americans make a huge range of different money, of course, and a flat tax -- in the sense that people who make very little income today do not pay much tax and they would pay much more under a flat tax regime. and the people who make a lot of money would pay a lot less tax. so while it is true that a flat saveould be simpler, would on a lot of administrative costs related to taxes, in the end, it would really reverse a lot of the progressivity that has been embedded in the american tax system for many years. host: here is an e-mail from one of our viewers, robert in atlanta who says -- any discussion of budget must are with the fact that over 60% of it is consumed by medicare, medicaid, and social security. unless we do with reducing the growth of those programs, they will eventually consume the asire budget, and i say that a progressive who cares about saving those programs. guest: i think that is an

excellent point. the american government has all 10 been -- has often been described as the -- it is true that over the coming decades that unless lawmakers take more action, rising health care costs and retirement of the baby boomers will increasingly consumed all american domestic spending. and that is a major, major challenge, especially because while it is probably very decent and fair and moral for us to support aging seniors with decent medical care and social security benefits, that is not where future economic growth comes from. it comes from a category of epending called nondefensi discretionary spending. education, job training, nih spending, spending that has returned overtime and equipped the population with the knowledge and skills to come up with new innovations, new ideas that make us healthier, happier, and more economically prosperous. spending on medicare and social security is rising, and spending

on that category -- and spending is in decline. that is a big problem facing our country's future. host: the "washington post" editorial board agrees with that imo from one of our viewers saying the budget comes up short. without projects and entitlement, the government's hands are tied. "usa today's" editorial saying obama's budget docs tough itices on benefits, saying would spend more on mandatory benefits ban on all other government auctions over the next decade. here are the numbers in trillions. the benefits programs, 31 trillion dollars. nasa -- national defense, $6 trillion. interest payments almost $6 trillion. this is over a decade of mandatory benefits. is written byiew jay carney, the white house spokesman, saying that the budget presents the president's plan for creating jobs, growing the economy, expanding opportunity, and ensuring long- term fiscal stability.

curtis in new hampshire, republican caller. the president is heading up your way today to talk about the budget and also minimum wage. go ahead, curtis. caller: good morning. i am a conservative, i am a republican only because of ron paul. i'm sorry that he is gone from the discussion. although the corporate media never let him be part of the discussion. i grew up in an in essay family -- an nsa family. i served in the latrine had the opportunity to do surveillance over the berlin wall. i am really interested in foreign policy because of my --eriences, and i really when the guy was talking about the fall of the roman empire because it is very on point. and it is not necessarily because it just taxes the rich, but just the fact that it was an

empire. we were warned about two things. foreign entangling alliances, which i believe led to 9/11, and also we were warned about the military-industrial complex. media we have a corporate that is part of the military- industrial complex. it pretty much excludes other points of view. actuallyhat c-span is part of that and probably one of the most effective parts of propaganda in this country. host: why do you say that, curtis? caller: well, because of the guest you have had on. peter weng has been on like, three times in the last year. and you disenfranchise your callers by not letting them have the last word. you filibuster question, you do not hold your guests accountable when they do not answer questions, the volume is usually lower for the guest, do you have got to turn it up to hear it. producersr associate just gave the american people a chance to debate the issues.

it does not. thank you. host: all right, curtis, well, we hope that you and others call in to challenge the guests. that is the beauty of the program. when a congressman says something that you disagree with, you can call in and tell them your point of view. it is bringing washington to all of you and your chance to talk directly to members of congress and other decision-makers here in washington. our guest today is agricultural, covers the white house and economics -- is zachary goldfarb, covers the white house and economics for the "washington post." our topic is the president's 2015 budget. let's go to jerry. go ahead, you are on the air. caller: i have a daughter who is a very good accountant with a very prestigious firm, and she told me that any rich person in taxes they pay 35% is either lying or they need to get a new accountant because of all the tax loopholes that they have.

i would like to comment on that, please. host: zachary goldfarb, what can you tell us on that? guest: i do not know if every rich person who says that is orng, but many do not pay deny .6%. it is very true that many paythy americans -- do not 39.6%. it is very true that many at wealthy americans have loopholes because they are able to make bridie of tax rates, deductions, loopholes, depending on what you want to call them. this was probably most dems ribeye mitt romney who had an between 30%x rates and 40%. everyone got a case study on this process then. the 2012, 2013 fiscal cliff tax deal reduced these tax breaks a little bit, but -- not tax breaks, but increased tax rates a little bit. wealthy americans

decreased to some, but there are still many tax breaks that allow wealthy americans to reduce their real taxable income, and that is a key part of the president's proposal is trying to address that. host: how does the president's budget deal with the affordable care act? guest: it does not have that much to do with the affordable care act, but it does do a few things. if fully funds the limitation of the affordable care act. for several years, the hhs has been scraping by here and there to try to get the programs fully funded, and they have done it because it is the president's top priority, but often the congress is never fully funded. severalet also proposes additional policies to build on the aca. for example, improving processes to medicare providers and other things. the main part of the aca is happening outside and is already in place and now it is an implementation question. host: on a blog this morning,

the house to today is scheduled to vote to reduce the fine or tax for violating the obamacare individual mandate this year to $0. it will bethis -- interesting to see how democrats in both the house and senate react. host: on that, on this issue of the affordable care act in the delaying of the mande, here is the "wall street journal" this morning. their headline is the insurers expect extension for old policies.

host: now the administration has decided to extend the reprieve. one insurance official said the reprieve could be an additional year or longer. that would allow many to stay in place through at least 2016. also on the affordable care act this morning, a side story in the "wall street journal," arkansas lawmakers passed private option program so that the arkansas lawmakers continue allowing be safe to use medicaid dollars to buy private health care insurance for poor residents, overcoming resistance from some republicans who said the program amounted to an endorsement of the affordable care act. we are talking about the 2015 budget and the president's plan. new jersey, what are your thoughts? caller: good morning. i have been listening to your

program all morning and i listen to c-span religiously. thank you very much for being there. do not your caller ds condone the sin that we are in the 21st century and i think that is really looking back to roman days and all of that kind of stuff -- we are in the now. we are not in the past. what i am concerned about is congress is not being held accountable for the things that they don't do. sending ourbeen congressmen and women there to represent the people, yet congress is only their for themselves. it is an ongoing job for the rest of their lives. they don't have any concern isut folks, and i think it really sad because america is the greatest country in the world, yet when you look at what they are doing to its people, it is really sad. i do not think there is anything wrong in trying to help folks in other parts of the world, but take care of home first.

and if congress and especially a lot if the republicans had president, wee would have been in a much better situation. they just do not seem to get that. also, i do not understand -- what happened to the word recovery? the congress people shut the mainly thedown -- republicans. we lost $24 billion. the word is recovery. how do we get that money back? host: i'm sorry, i thought you were done there. zachary goldfarb. guest: i think the caller reflect a lot of frustration in the nation's economic recovery and sadness that it has not benefited more people. i do not think it is true that people in congress do not care about people or a struggling. i just think there is a profound disagreement about the best way to address that from the federal government standpoint. republicans not believing government has much of a role to play, that the government really gets in the way of people advancing on their own. democrats really believe that

government should be out there and helping people step-by-step get out of a difficult situation. through financial aid or other assistance. so it is a profound is agreement in congress and in the country, 50/50 on many issues about what to do about the nations major economic challenges. and congress reflects that. means, tweet -- by all address and social security and medicare, but do not use their future issues to a nor $17.5 a $17.5 -- to ignore trillion debt elephant in the room. naomi, republican caller. caller: good morning. a couple of things here. talking about the budget -- i do not think that taxpayers should be paying for four-year-olds -- for preschool. -- it is much too

young for regimented classwork. some five-year-olds are too young. as far as the roman empire -- definitely we are spreading ourselves too thin, but it looks pre-world war ii germany. i really think the dollar is going to be inflated because of the feds areney -- $85 into wall street billion. host: is there a tie between what the federal reserve is doing in the budget that the president puts together that congress will -- congress' own budget, the spending that they do? guest: allguest: only in a very -- guest: only in a very limited sense in that it has a very profound impact on interest

rates over time antigovernment baros money to finance spending because we have a deficit. -- and the government borrows money to finance spending because we have a deficit. they do not coordinate on that at all. the fed is responding to economic conditions. so as long as the economy remains weak, which is still is coming even though it is much better than it was, interest rates will quite likely be low, and the fed will support continuing that, and the government will be able to borrow a team or -- at cheaper rates. fed, speaking of the former chairman ben bernanke purportedly made more money to they then he made all of last year as head of the federal reserve. thatrs had this story bernanke was paid at least a 250,000 dollars for his first public speaking engagements in abu dhabi since stepping down in january. that compares to his 2013 and the of $199,700,

appearance was only the first of three around the world this week. all right, let's go to manchester, tennessee, democrat caller. norma, you were on with zachary goldfarb of the "washington post ." caller: hello. i draw $946. that is how i pay my rent, and by the time i pay my light bill, i hardly have food left to buy your food, your groceries and stuff. i wonder -- what is president obama going to do about the people that are on social security? is he going to plan on raising social security so people can make a little bit more affordable so they can live off of? that is my question. guest: until recently, there had not been significant cost-of-

living adjustments in social security because inflation had been very, very low in the recession in the years following. the debate going forward unfortunately for current retirees and future retirees is not whether to enhance social security benefits but whether to trim them. no one is going to see their social security benefit go down, but the row question is whether adjustments over time will be less generous. the president has opened the door and republicans generally favor what is known as chained cpi, which is a less generous measure of inflation and cost- of-living increases. many economists say it is a much more accurate measure. many democrats do not like the idea because the trims benefits, entrance the growth of future benefits for retirees. for current retirees, as i said, the row question in the future is will benefits go more slowly? there will not be cut, but will

they grow more slowly. there is no talk of increasing them faster. goldfarb, thank you very much for helping us we will continue this conversation in the last hour. numbers on your screen. keep calling in. we will take your questions and your comments coming up on this -- after this news update. 's new prime minister in his first interview since taking office. he says crimea must remain part of ukraine. it may be granted more local powers. to deny reports that ukraine is negotiating with the u.s. for deployment of u.s. missile defenses in exchange for financial help, saying this is not true. we have no talks with the government of the united states of america on a type of deployment.

'se head of the european union executive arm says the block is ready to provide the team billion dollars of aid in the coming years. said itission president will include loans and grants from the u.s. well is the european investment bank. do united states announced a $1 billion aid package. estimates it needs -- over the next us careers. kind ofs says he is amused by some of the headlines on tv and elsewhere that russian president putin has lost touch with reality. knowss president putin what he is doing. he is trying to reestablish russian influence and a measure of control over the former state of the soviet union. obamaed that president

and his aides have their work cut out for them. are some of the headlines on c-span radio. new c-span.org website gives you access to an incredible library of political events. more is added each day through the nonstop coverage of national politics, history, and nonfiction books. find the daily coverage of official washington or access more than 200,000 hours of archived c-span video. everything c-span has covered since 1987. our video is searchable and a viewable on your desktop computer, tablet, or smartphone. look for the search bar at the top of each page. the new c-span.org makes it easy to watch what is happening today in washington and fine people and events from the past 25 years. it is the most comprehensive video library in politics. >> c-span.

we bring public affairs events from washington directly to you. we put you in the room at white house events, briefings, and conferences, and offer gavel-to-gavel coverage of the u.s. house. we are c-span. created by the cable tv industry 35 years ago and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. watch this in hd, like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. journal" continues. more about the budget blueprint. obama unveils his wish list. $56 billion in new spending. republicans say it is here responsible. the commercere department. the agency gets money for research and testing of design methods.

the young and the poor, obama proposes major expansion of earned income tax credit that than its 13.5 million low income workers, including an estimated three point 3 million workers between the ages of 21 and 24. homeland security, also a winner. newncludes money for 2000 customs and border protection officers and potentially another 2000 officers through proposed increases i other fees. -- by other fees. mixed verdict. $1.35 billion set aside for global fund to fight aids. airline passengers. travelers would pay $5 billion more over the next decade for travel security as the white house looks to align airline fees with the cost of passenger screening. charities are also on the loser

list. a 28% cap for charitable deductions. that could cost nonprofits $9 billion a year. of the highlights from president obama's 2015 budget for bozo. we want to get your thoughts on that. democrats, (202) 585-3880. republicans, (202) 585-3881. independents, (202) 585-3882. if you are outside the united states, you can call us at (202) 585-3883. ord us a tweet, @cspanwj post your comments on facebook.com/cspan or you can send an e-mail at journal@c-span.org. the president unveiled the budget yesterday. congress is controlling the purse strings. they will decide how much gets spent and where. , the senator from

tweeted this out. 's budget shows he still hasn't learned that we cannot tax, spend and borrow our way to prosperity. says it reflects america's priorities to create jobs, strengthen the middle class and build an economy that reads opportunity for all. paul ryan, at one point silly hike and7 trillion tax illion, find out more. budget director, sylvia burwell, will be on capitol hill, testifying before the senate. she will be squaring off against

paul ryan about the budget. we will have coverage of that hearing this morning -- this afternoon at 2:00 p.m. eastern time. this morning, jack lew will be on the senate i've before -- and we will have coverage of that as well. defending the president's 2015 budget blueprint. ken, what do you think? kim.r: my name is host: apologies. caller: i would like to be able youinish my comment like allow the democratic people to voice their opinions. --atch her show up it. it is your show a bit. it is slanted towards the progressive side. president proposes to borrow more money from china.

i saw that john kerry pledged another billion dollars to the ukraine, which will go thectly to russia because ukraine is in debt to russia for i don't know how many billion. i do not have that information. is bizarre. things are getting upside down. i wanted to voice that. we borrow all of this money from china. theave warships sitting off coast of cuba. i don't understand how people can say, we need this. we need that. we do, get out and work for. dig a ditch, do something. job to sendngress'

you a check every month. john, what do you think? caller: i disagree with the caller that just call. c-span is not slanted in favor of the left. and i was listening trying to get on before he got on. he was confusing people. he said when democrats are in power, the republicans of struct and vice versa. he did not point out the fact that republicans are obstructing an ahistorical way. that confuses people. it makes it difficult to hold politicians accountable. host: tom, republican caller. caller: i have a couple of questions or statements. social security. everybody wants to cut social security. they say it is an entitlement. we have been paying on social security all of our lives.

i am 78 years old. i joined the air force when i was 15. i retired 23 years later. we paid for. this is not entitlement. how much money does the government borrow from our social security pot and spend it and never pay it back? if they pay it back, social security would not be a problem. host: bernie, illinois, independent caller. caller ise previous exactly my point. i want to talk about the budget because that is the topic. zachary goldfarb and other people are misled. he was misleading and here responsible. social security and medicare, think of them as insurance policies. , it ise fully funded debatable for how long.

some tweaking, it can last for 75 more years. historically, they did not contribute to the deficit. i am not sure when they were mixed with the general budget. money for war and the income and the insurance that was paid through payroll directions -- deductions, overall, the deficit war funding and pentagon funding. it goes into a black hole. people want those things, they should tax and pay for those things. i object to calling social security and medicare entitlements. i am on medicare and social security. it is an insurance policy i paid the premiums on. i am getting what i paid for. things withhose things like war spending and

other kinds of spending. host: what did you do for a living? caller: i was a schoolteacher. host: retired? caller: i am. host: what age did you retire at? caller: i worked until i was 60 and-a-half. able to survive on your social security? caller: i am doing ok. able to job where i was set up a 401(k). i am conservative with a. i did not get hit with the downturn in the economy. i am doing fine. teaching totute make a little bit more? caller: no, i am not. i am an activist. host: burling, illinois.

pennsylvania, how are you doing? caller: i have a few short comments. shot --n empire was brought down by the greed and avarice of the rich. capal security, take the off of it. we will be fine. a lady yesterday said she read in the newspaper that the republicans did not shut down the government, the democrats did. at you have to do is look the congressional vote and you will see differently. i am well educated. andve two bachelors degrees a teaching certificate and cannot get a job in the state. i worked a part-time minimum job because that is all i can get. everybody is struggling. everybody look at the facts. the gentleman that called and

said you are leaning towards progressives, i love c-span. notice recently that the republicans, when they are guests, they have gone over there time limit, right into the time limits for democrats. awill never vote for republican again. thank you very much for listening to me. have a great day. -- we try toes balance the amount of time between the two different perspectives. sometimes, people one lane and we have to keep a guest on until the next one shows up. it is not a matter of having one than another. sometimes it is just a matter of scheduling. joe says this. amounts to less than

$80 billion per year out of four dollars. -- $4. [video clip] > >> we have to make smart investments necessary to create jobs and grow our economy. there is a time when our deficits are falling at the fastest rates in 60 years. we have to decide if we're going to keep squeezing the middle class or if we're going to continue to reduce the deficit is responsible while taking steps to grow and strengthen the middle class. the american people have made it clear time and again which approach they prefer. that is the approach my budget offers. i will fight for this year and in the years to come. that is the president talking about his 2015 budget.

john boehner responded with a statement saying despite signing last year's budget deal and counting it as an icon pushback, the president proposes violating that agreement with a spending surge. he proposes raising more taxes. we are talking about the president's budget blueprint sent to congress. congress will decide how the money is spent, which agencies will get what. one of those agencies is the transportation department. joining us is kathryn wolfe. she covers transportation issues with "political." how much for the transportation department and how will it be spent? it is about $90 billion for various transportation funds. a lot of it goes through the transportation department. go to thet actually

transportation department. agosta states for their various programs, highways, transit, , airports, improvement projects, those are the major categories. the paper say the transportation department gets $14 billion. you are saying it is more than that. why the difference in those numbers? some of that is discretionary spending that the transportation department is able to decide where it goes. a lot of it is decided by congress. -- they will say be able to set spending priorities. -- they put some some strains on how the money gets spent. they do not have total control

over how the money gets spent. president obama to urge 300 $2 billion transportation bill how does that relate to well we are talking about -- to what we are talking about? the budgetses submission to lay out priorities for the reauthorization bill inside the budget. they are not normally married, but that is the way he has done it. only hasy the budget $90 billion for fiscal 2015, that is true. it does contain his vision for the transportation bill. what is his vision? guest: he wants to invest a lot in transit.

large a lot of fairly offsets for transit. fund that is mostly fueled by gasoline tax and congress decides how gets spent. typically that is only covering highways and transit. president obama has proposed to move rail spending under this and restructure it in significant ways. he wants to pay for it by overhauling corporate tax policies to find the savings and redirect some of the revenues. the gasat happens to tax in the highway trust fund? guest: there is no change to the way that works. they are just adding extra revenue. this is a key point.

it is one-time revenue. code, ite the tax results in some revenue. it will be sent out over several years. you get back to the same issue. the highway trust fund is not keeping pace with spending needs and do something else with have to be done, even if it is an acted the way he sees it -- an acted the way -- enacted the way he sees it. host: i will states get money for these infrastructure projects? they are structured in a way that says this is how much a state can expect that we will reimburse them. projects over a several year period, understanding that they will be reimbursed a certain amount of , assuming they go the

parameters of the federal program. they will invoice the government and say here's my project, we spend this much money and the dot will cut a check to the -- sometimes every day, sometimes every week. our cities or states planning to do this with the money the president is talking about? this point, the budget documents are aspirational. i would say not. i don't think anyone expects this will happen. there's is also a deadline attached. the current transportation bill will expire at the end of september and needs to be replaced. if it is not replaced, there will be cuts the program. i thing the states are worried about it because nobody has been able to coalesce around a

solution, especially in the time frame. sometimes it is not until the last minute. it makes states -- it makes it difficult for states. you are talking about being uncertain never a matter of months. host: are there some states out there that have infrastructure , that aren the works almost done, and they are worried that they may not get reimbursed from the federal government? guest: there are some. -- theythey probably would get reimbursed. what happens is the trust fund cannot run a negative balance. they will start doing is slowing down payments. they may not get what they are anticipating or as quickly as they anticipate it. that creates obvious problems. most are worried about projects

for next year. ofas talking to the director dot. that they are not -- they have a little more reserved than some states have. they are not worried about the next year months. they are worried about if something doesn't happen by september orrock tober, they're not going to be able to let new -- that will be an entire construction season that is gone. --struction problems create construction projects create jobs. are ony for people that job sites, but if you are wearing a hard hat and laying concrete, you're going to have a job. also economic effects.

those construction workers go out and buy a sandwich for lunch , they go shopping while they're over there. there is a lot of potential economic impact with this money not getting out the door in a timely fashion. host: kathryn wolfe, with "politico." thank you for your time. we are getting your thoughts on the budget blueprint this morning. f o, texas, republican caller. ethel, texas, republican caller. i want to talk about a couple of things. you keepr one is calling social security entitlement. i started working at the age of 14. a family of six, twins, deserted by our father.

i worked until i was 60 years old. tax, tax, tax and the medicaid. sometimes i paid a lot. i work two jobs at one time. i got disabled two months before my 60th birthday. i thought i was going to work until the day i died. i body fell apart. all of that money we paid in, ask the democrats about. it was the democratic presidents that pulled out of social security to keep the government open. it seems like everything comes out of social security.

the other thing, medicaid. of people that are underprivileged. i understand that. ofhave hundreds of thousands illegal immigrants that are on this, even on obamacare. "the washington post where did you learn that? host: where did you learn that? how do you budget more than you take him? he is weighing in on the budget proposal. kim, davenport, iowa. caller: the bottom line of this whole thing is not looking at

-- when looking at the transportation part of it. building bridges to nowhere, yes it gives us jobs. we have three prisons in the united states that were never open. was 13 yearsar us never open because they built it with federal money. they could not afford to staff it in the state of illinois. the president was told no on purchasing that prison from the and he usedinois his pen to override what congress told him and go ahead and purchased the prison and illinois. the prison is in a horrible state. it will never open. now the federal government owns that prison. my daughter works for the department of the army as a civilian.

i am upset and she is ready to leave that job. ,he has five years of college but she is ready to leave because she has -- she is fed up with the fact that they came to , you haveust and said no more money appropriated, don't spend in your programs for your installation. the six yearsr, she has been there, they came to her at the end of the year and have $32,000 and you have two weeks suspended. if you will lose it. why don't they say, you can take this money and you can apply it towards the national debt? host: some don't believe the debt deficit is the problem with the economy. that perpetuates utter nonsense.

sam stein tweeted in about the president's budget. he said obama's budget proposal is $100ge -- nih million less than bush's 2002 level when adjusted for inflation. charles, what you make of the budget proposal? this $3.9ere does trillion actually get spent and what programs is a go to? i have been unemployed for a --le and it is the mental middle of winter. in construction, there is no work. there's nothing you can do about it. i can apply at mcdonald's, but that will not make me what i was making. it is not going to cut it. if it was not for my family having a cabin, i would have no place to live right now.

ridiculous that they are not working towards something. what do these republicans want? do they want something to get out of this? are they asking for to pass this bill? you the were showing winners and losers, the breakdown of the budget. in red, those of the departments that lost money compared to last year. the green is where the agencies gained money. times" has this. spending, 563 billion. social security, 896 billion. medicaid, 336-- billion. other mandatory spending comes in at 691 billion.

interest on the debt, 252 billion. elderly and disabled make up 60% of medicaid spending. grand bargain medicaid cuts would hurt the disabled, elderly the most. caller: my comment has to do with the american community survey. this is the second one i have gotten. i have gotten one for my business and one to my personal residence. it is an intrusive survey that money youhow much make and where you make it. it seems like it is to figure out where to come up with more money. it is an interesting survey. they want to know how many indoor bathrooms i have, it that are. investmentrom

income, etc. host: what you make of it? it is a way for them to come up with more money. it is through the commerce department. the federalk government has a clue america trying to figure out where to come up with more money and who to get it from. when we cannot take care to see that our people are ok, then we shouldn't be looking at helping other country's economy. the white house is requesting a $17.5 billion budget for u.s. space agency in the fiscal year that begins october 1. that marks a one percent decrease from their 2014 budget.

david, democratic caller. caller: i have been listening for a while and i cannot believe these calls are saying c-span is . corporate propaganda they are the most fair and balanced program on tv. those callers may be a little -- ofaning towards the fox discount. spending, thatus will create jobs which creates revenue for the government and communities that will be served by that spending. it seems like it would be a win-win situation.

republicans seem to be dead set on the keystone pipeline, which may create five to 10, maybe 15,000 jobs. it will only create a few thousand permanent jobs. infrastructure spending would be -- cutting back on foreign aid. -- it islittle bit time for america to -- charity begins at home. the return getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. there is a reason that phrase was coined. corporate tax loopholes should be eliminated. presenting it as a tax hike is closing loopholes for the wealthiest of the wealth of this -- the wealthiest of the wealthy. you are the most fair and

balanced and the place to go. host: thank you. we are approaching our 35th anniversary in march. for those of you interested about us, go to our website. if you scroll down to the bottom, there is an about action that you can read about the mission and about our funding. our mission aty, the top says c-span is a public service created by the american cable television industry. we are not funded by the government, taxpayer dollars, but by the cable television industry. buddy, how are you? caller: thanks for talking to me. i remember johnson when he started the great society. they needed the money from somewhere. socialnt into the security trust fund. they put ious in there.

they were borrowing it. the ious are still sitting there. it is not like they stole the money. the ious are still there. they're worthless. be able to inflate the currency without anybody realizing it, johnson stopped creating silver coinage in 1964 through 19 sisi seven. -- 1967. gold were far and too valuable to be used for money. they have been doing -- nixon took us all together off of the gold standard. it allows the government to print money. before that, washington, jefferson, all of the founding fathers warned against a central bank renting money.

they would bankrupt the company -- the country. if all of these people calling in think that they will be able just wait themselves, about five or 10 years. with 17 trillion in the hole now, when the world loses confidence in the u.s. dollar, you will see the biggest crash in the history of mankind. host: there are seven things to know about the president's budget. president obama's budget sees the debt shrinking. if all of the policies were and -- implemented. by comparison, the budget office compares the current policies

would lead to the debt rising to 79% of the rise -- the size of the economy by 2024. we will keep getting your thoughts here this morning on the president's 2015 budget blueprint. in other news, the wall street journal reports on the affordable care act. insurers are expecting another extension for their old policy. health plans that don't meet the law's requirements could be renewed. for ald be another delay year, according to "the wall street journal." also this morning, this headline. insurancee in flood programs. they back a compromise plan. passed with ahich

306-91 vote would ease the bite of the biggert-waters law. that law attempts to shift more of the risk of holding property in flood prone areas to owners by phasing out federal subsidies and discounts funded by u.s. taxpayers. front page of the new york times this morning has this headline. -- ona inquiry is set to the tensions. secretsmpt to keep the of a defunct interrogation program has escalated a battle between agency and numbers of congress and lead to an investigation by cia's internal watchdog into the conduct of agency employees.

the inspector general began the inquiry partly as a response to complaints from members of congress that cia employees were improperly monitoring the work of staff members of the senate intelligence committee, according to government officials with knowledge of the investigation. that is on the front page of "the wall street journal." we will go to harry next in ohio. independent caller. you have been on the air for 35 years. 10 days before his assassination in dallas, president kennedy the high office of president has been used to form a plot to destroy america's freedom and before i leave

office, i must inform the citizenry of this flight. he was going to go all the way back to 1933 when we went off the gold standard. host: how does this tie to the budget? cannot place yourself into prosperity. pat, tennessee, democratic caller. caller: thank you for having me. i was glad to know that president obama is going to take some of the money back into medicare. he was taking a hundred something billion dollars out of medicare to cover this obama care. . i think people have forgotten about that. i will never vote for another democrat. they have torn this country up.

i am 69 years old. i worked until i was 65 and had to quit because of health reasons. i would still be working if not for that. he is teaching our children that you do not have to work to get anything, that the government will pay for. live the most poverty circumstances? you have to have a job. i hate to see my money being wasted. the policies this resident has ,ut in and and acted -- enacted go back to the constitution and rita. the bill of read rights, constitution, the preamble, everything. he is tearing this country apart. left thehe people sochi games in the olympics to go back home because this was happening over in ukraine during that. host: gerald, allison, michigan.

caller: i would like to talk to you about this president and how he is passing bills. it is jeopardizing our kids. believe this president has any clue about what he is doing. -- someone would stand up to him and say enough. rules, madeken the bills -- obama care is nothing but a total disaster. i think someone should get up there and say we are going to impeach you. you do not have any clue what you have done to this country. host: got your point. tim, democratic caller. good morning. i would like to put a plug in

for c-span. it is a wonderful attempt to get people thinking about what is going on. i am amazed at the last caller to whatlittle clue as is going on. he is mad, but he is mad at the wrong people. that is a typical republican. where we think back to were in 2001 when george bush took over, we had surpluses, a andng economy, we had peace prosperity. eight years later, we had the great recession. debt. tremendous the last budget was for a $1.3 trillion deficit. we were losing nearly a million jobs a month. the reason we are having trouble today and the reason the states are in such big trouble is because of the great recession.

we have now cut the deficit in half and obama is doing a terrific job. obamacare is wonderful for this country. people really do not have a clue as to what is going on. host: let's hear from a republican, charles, huntington, west virginia. caller: the infrastructure he is doing, that is great. i work from connecticut to maine ohio,rgia to florida to pennsylvania, kentucky, and all the states in between. i work with so many illegals, side-by-side. , i wasn't like a disabled. the people that does the work, they are illegals. host: are you afraid that the infrastructure spending money noncitizens?

caller: yes. getill go to people that government contracts a higher illegals. i have gotten into so many arguments with people on facebook and illegals, saying how would you like to stand out there for 12 hours a day for .ive dollars and hours you should not be out there doing that. they're breaking the law. our military men coming back -- they ought to put them on the onder, build military bases the borders, secure our borders and stop all of the illegals. don't know if al qaeda is coming across the borders. the border have chinese writing on them. they don't know who is coming across the borders. here's a headline in the wall street journal.

spy teams are split on the crimea move. spy agencies were split over moscow's intentions. the differences have prompted a congressional review. a pentagon analyst concluded there will be no movement in the next 24 hours. by saturday, russia had taken over the ukrainian black sea peninsula of crimea. in an interview, a committee had began a review to find out why readlligence analysts mis vladimir putin's intentions. has a columnn post on why russia's split on what to do there. energy output makes russia a key

supplier to the world. making any move to sanction exports makes it painful for all, particularly in europe. -- thehington times united states, president obama, if he is serious about helping the people of ukraine, he will expedite the approval process for liquefied natural gas exports. them free help themselves from manipulation. we're going to keep taking your thoughts for about 10 more minutes. join us on the phone is alyson klein. she covers education issues for education week. what is the president proposing to do with his budget on education? guest: it would be a winner. it was a tight budget year.

they would get a small increase. given the restrained spending across the board, that is a big deal. the president is making a pitch for a huge $75 billion prekindergarten program to entice states to offer prekindergarten to more 4-year-old. the proposal has not made it far in congress. pay for thatts to using tobacco tax. there are not a lot of lawmakers who want to introduce that. the new iteration of the race to the top program would be free hundred million dollars to states and districts. that would help them close the gap.

part of that would be making sure that poor and minority students have the same access to other teachers. it is unclear whether congress will want to provide new money for this program. host: what does congress want to do with race to the top? fairlyit was parent -- popular around the country. has aged, folks in congress have noticed it has created winners and losers. there has been some pushback, even for democrats. for world states and world districts to apply for the programs.

the programs are title i which serves disadvantaged kids. what is the president's vision on higher education? proposing two new education programs. one is a fund to provide bonuses to colleges that bolster graduation rates for recipients. those are the poorest college students. the administration also wants a fund over 10 years that would encourage states to use a technique called performance based budgeting. that rewards colleges based on the results they produce. host: teachers -- does the president address teachers?

guest: a new initiative would be a program to help teachers do a better job of using emerging technologies in their classrooms , especially technologies that help them track student data to see how their students are doing , adjust their instruction. there is also a $5 billion mandatory spending. it is not a paid for initiative. host: alyson klein covers education. she is a staff writer for "education week." thank you very much. budget.eted about the charities don't need to worry about anything because they know the budget is never going to be voted on.

jeff, georgia, democratic caller. go ahead and weigh in. caller: i am a first-time caller. i sometimes get tired of hearing the republicans say no. the journalists, nobody ever say whathe republicans are you going to do? all i hear is john boehner say it is the responsible. phrase.just a what is a responsible about the budget? it sounds good to me. the though i am a democrat, other caller that called in, i do agree with him about illegal aliens. i see it every day in my state. i see jobs that used to be occupied by american citizens.

i believe a lot of the people that i see working on these construction sites and roofing are and whatever, they illegal. the federal government needs to do a better job. if they are breaking the law, they need to be dealt with. i am a democrat and i hope i am not defending anyone. equallyshould be applied to everyone. host: independent color. -- caller. it seems to me -- i am

not rich. i am probably lower middle class. seems to me like if you are something, that is yours. it is wrong to take something that belongs to someone else. host: what about the proposal to boost the earned income tax credit for childless workers. caller: what do i think about that? host: yes. it says $60 billion for an expansion of the earned income credit. incentives for low income individuals.

caller: i don't think it is to be-- rich people ought taxed more simply because they're rich. host: ryan, tennessee. caller: i was wanting to talk about all of the misconception and polarization that we have in this country. people need to educate themselves. problems all kinds of -- we need to go back to 1971. this is happening today. it doesn't matter what he puts into the budget. it will not be passed. they do not want to do anything. takeorporations want to t care of everything. conservatism is not what it was under eisenhower.

you have 140 people that owns more than 150 million people on the bottom. this has to stops. the polarization has to stop. you have to show us -- spend money to make does. we have no money to make jobs. host: mark, indiana, republican caller. my concern is with the .udget i have a feeling that the democrats are going to run us into the ground like they did in detroit. five years from now, i look for chicago to go completely under.

california, look at what has happened to california. i am lucky enough to be in a state where my kids -- they have things under control. democrats have run this country into the dirt. tois sad that all they want do is borrow and spend, raise taxes, borrow and spend, raise taxes, and borrow and spend. this $3.9 trillion budget, that thing for the democratic party. it is sad to see what they have done for this country. emily, hig. can spend all day blaming the president, but where we are falling as we are not looking at the root of our problems. we spend a lot of money on health care. realizeto refocus and we are spending money on health care because we have a lot of sick people.

secondly, i graduated college in 2009 with a bachelor's. $70,000 in debt to start. they come and go back to start -- to school and get more training. the root of our problem is we need to redefine ourselves as a country. we are not a service economy anymore. we have to redefine ourselves as americans. what are we going to be? host: how old are you and what do you do? caller: i am 26 years old. i ran restaurants for about five years and now i am working with a local, organic farm. nutrition ining our lives, we are reading sickness.

there are studies showing that if we incorporate better nutrition and exercise and things that you do not have to go to the doctors. you do not have to -- as often. i am not saying there is not going to be sickness. incorporating this in our education system, teaching kids about nutrition, i don't think we would see as much. host: we have to cut you off there. the house is in session. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's room, washington, d.c., march 5, 2014. i hereby appoint the honorable charles j. fleischmann to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, john a. boehner, speaker of the house of representatives.